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Robert Prosky, 77, an Actor of Wide Range and Acumen, Is Dead

Robert Prosky, a craggy-faced, heavyset character actor who after 23 years in regional theater became a familiar face on Broadway, in movies and on television, notably as a gruff desk sergeant in the later years of “Hill Street Blues,” died on Monday in Washington. He was 77.

The cause was complications of heart surgery, his son John said.

Mr. Prosky — who was nominated for two Tony awards for his work on Broadway and appeared in popular movies like “The Natural” (1984), “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993) and “Broadcast News” (1987) — epitomized the versatility of a consummate character actor; within one year he played the head the C.I.A. and the K.G.B.

Mr. Prosky’s immediate success in 1984 on “Hill Street Blues” as the replacement for the beloved desk sergeant played by Michael Conrad, who had died, reflected his acting acumen. Mr. Prosky created a wholly new character, one who combined aggressiveness, defensiveness and a penchant for ridiculous accidents. This scrupulously honed persona became synonymous with the new sergeant’s signature line: “Let’s do it to them before they do it to us.”

The Sunday Mail, a London newspaper, said that Mr. Prosky’s acting gave the transition “the smoothness of a first-class magic act.”

Mr. Prosky, who appeared in 220 plays, 38 movies and hundreds of television shows, developed his craft at the Arena Stage in Washington, a regional theater admired for range and ambition. His two exquisite portrayals of Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” there are still talked about. In 1980 Mel Gussow wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Prosky represented “a certification of the effectiveness of the American regional theater movement.”

He loved the live stage, both its diversity of roles and its exhilarating urgency. In an interview with The Washingtonian in 1993, he said, “That uncertainty, that living in the moment is the essence of the actor’s craft.”

In 1982 he turned down the role of Coach in “Cheers” — and a big pile of money — because he could not stand the thought of playing the same role for the seven years specified in the contract. (Nicholas Colasanto got the part.)

Mr. Prosky appeared in a half-dozen Broadway plays and was nominated for Tony awards for playing a fast-talking salesman in “Glengarry Glen Ross” in 1984-85 and a Soviet disarmament negotiator in “A Walk in the Woods” in 1988.

Photo

The character actor Robert Prosky as the Maharal in the Manhattan Ensemble Theaters 2002 production of The Golem.Credit
Aaron Epstein

His gift for portraying stark emotion was suggested in Frank Rich’s review of “Glengarry” in The Times: “There’s no color in the salesman’s pasty, dumbstruck face — just the abject terror of a life in which all words are finally nothing because it’s only money that really talks.”

This portrayal reflected Mr. Prosky’s meticulous preparation. He and other stars interviewed a range of salespeople from Fuller Brush salesladies to slick operators peddling tax shelters

Robert Joseph Prosky was born as the only son of a grocer on Dec. 13, 1930, in what he termed a “Polish ghetto” in Philadelphia. He acted in high school, but earned a degree in economics from Temple University. He joined the Air Force, but got a hardship discharge to help with the family store when his father died suddenly.

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While working at the store, he participated in amateur theater and won a talent contest. That led to a two-year course at the American Theater Wing in New York. He joined the Arena Theater and thereafter worked only as an actor.

At 49 he broke into movies when the director Michael Mann cast him in his film “Thief” (1981). In an interview with The Washington Post in 1992, Mr. Prosky said, “At an age when most men’s options are closing, mine were opening.”

Other movies in which he appeared included “Christine” (1983); “Things Change” (1988); “Rudy” (1993); “Hoffa” (1992); and “Dead Man Walking” (1995). Part of his vast television work was playing Kirstie Alley’s father both in an episode of “Cheers” and in the series “Veronica’s Closet.”

In recent years Mr. Prosky toured with two of his sons, John and Andrew, both actors, in “The Price,” an Arthur Miller play. This year the three appeared in a presentation of the play in Washington.

Mr. Prosky is also survived by his wife, the former Ida Hove, an anthropologist; another son, Stefan, a microbiologist; and three grandchildren.

Mr. Prosky’s skills as an actor were as finely turned as the handcrafted wooden pens he made as a hobby. As a personality, he disappeared in his roles, telling The Washingtonian that people on the street approached him as “a long-lost cousin or something.”

“Sometimes I have to tell them I’m an actor,” he continued. “Then I’m suddenly in this ridiculous position, enumerating my credits to a complete stranger.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: Robert Prosky, 77, an Actor Of Wide Range and Acumen. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe